Big Quotes

500+ Sourced quotes

When the inhabitants of some sequestered island first descry the "big canoe" of the European rolling through the blue waters towards their shores, they rush down to the beach in crowds, and with open arms stand ready to embrace the strangers. Fatal embrace! They fold to their bosoms the viper whose sting is destined to poison all their joys.

Herman Melville

Prince Charles' ears are so big he could hang-glide over the Falklands.

After all, our lives are but a sequence of accidents - a clanking chain of chance events. A string of choices, casual or deliberate, which add up to that one big calamity we call life.

Rohinton Mistry

What I hate is the thought of being under a man's thumb," I had told Doctor Nolan. "A man doesn't have a worry in the world, while I've got a baby hanging over my head like a big stick, to keep me in line.

I never said it. Honest. Oh, I said there are maybe 100 billion galaxies and 10 billion trillion stars. It's hard to talk about the Cosmos without using big numbers. I said 'billion' many times on the Cosmos television series, which was seen by a great many people. But I never said 'billions and billions.' For one thing, it's imprecise. How many billions are 'billions and billions'? A few billion? Twenty billion? A hundred billion? 'Billions and billions' is pretty vague... For a while, out of childish pique, I wouldn't utter the phrase, even when asked to. But I've gotten over that. So, for the record, here it goes: 'Billions and billions.'

Global climate change is a big deal to me. We need to change our ways.

I find the big bang, really quite fascinating. I mean, here you have all these highfalutin scientists and they're saying it was this gigantic explosion and everything came into perfect order.

Evolution has meant that our prefrontal lobes are too small, our adrenal glands are too big, and our reproductive organs apparently designed by committee; a recipe which, alone or in combination, is very certain to lead to some unhappiness and disorder.

Christopher Hitchens

I love competition.
I'd rather have to fight and worry than be peaceful and secure, any day.
I've found that I'm a peaceful, easy-going sort of a fellow about all the small things in life. But when a big issue comes along and when I feel I'm right about it—well, I guess I'm pretty stubborn. Even nasty.
I've taken up golf. I'm crazy about it. Doug Fairbanks and I play every day that we can get away from work. I not only like the game a lot, but I want to master it. I'm not satisfied just to play golf. I want to be good at it. That's the way I've come to feel about everything.

I realized that this was the big secret of democracy — that change can occur by starting off with just a few people doing something.

I love you in–in every kind of way.' 'I feel like that too...' His voice is shocked and raw. 'It's – it's a feeling so big I sometimes think it's going to swalow me. It's so strong I feel it could kil me. It keeps growing and I can't – I don't know what to do to stop it. But – but we're not supposed to do this – to love each other like this!

You'd think family would be the one sure thing in life, the gimme? Points you got just for being born? So much thick, meaty stuff bound you to these people, so many interlocking spirals of history, genetics, common cause, and struggle that it should be the most basic of all drives, that you would strive to protect and love one another, yet this bond that should be the big no-brainer was in fact the hardest thing.

It always looks small while you hold it in your hands, but let it go, and you learn at once how big and precious it is.

On happiness

The more I study men, the more I realize that they are nothing in the world but boys grown too big to be spankable.

I never trusted any man not to find someone else; to stay with me if he had another option. to not find something in me that would have him heading for the hills. that was the other reason for not thinking long-term- when someone walked out, as they invairiably did, it wasn't too big a shock. a disappointment but nothing, I hadn't been expecting.

Dorothy Koomson

It's a big gift to be recognizable as part of something that matters to people, but that's not the same as being responsible for something.

That meant I could come back whenever I could manage it. And she was telling me to go. She knew the decision was too big a load for me to carry by myself. She knew me through and through. She had eyes in the back of her heart.

Richard Peck (writer)

There's something to the idea of the autonomous character. Big chunks of our wetware are devoted to simulating other people, trying to figure out if we are likely to fight or fondle them. It's unsurprising that when you ask your brain to model some other person, it rises to the task. But that's exactly what happens to a reader when you hand your book over to him: he simulates your characters in his head, trying to interpret that character's actions through his own lens.

I don't really distinguish between Linux and things that are more or less direct descendants of Unix. I think they're all the same at some level. Often, people ask me, "Do you feel jealous about Linux being the big thing." And the answer is no, for the same reason. I think they're the same.

Legend has it that when God created me, he gave me a big distinctive voice, a lot of boldness and no heart.

Well, we have a major crisis because Welfarism is failing. The Christian community must begin to reestablish Christian charity. I think every church could begin as a number of black churches have done, with the people in their area or their own members relatives, friends, who are in desperate need. If every church in this country, it has been said by a statistician, could take care of three families the problem would disappear. Well, there are big churches that could take care of more than three families. And those that can take care of only one or half a family, those churches could come together and accomplish a great deal.

Rousas John Rushdoony

[It's] 2006 and pot is still controversial. That's hilarious. Pot's still illegal and no one has a jet pack. What the fuck is going on?! Isn't this Silicon Valley? Where's the jet packs, bitch?! I just wanna go up to everyone making cell phones and say, "Hey, that's small enough. Stop right there. Just keep them working." 72 inch TV? That's plenty big, dude. Just keep them working. No, you'll never get pot and you'll never get a jet pack. And you'll certainly never get the two of them at the same time. Civilization would fucking crumble. Be honest, would you work? 'Cuz I wouldn't work. Who the fuck is gonna show up for work at the mortgage company when you can smoke pot and fly?!

I stood on Susan Boone's front porch, feeling lame. But then, since I've pretty much felt lame my entire life, this was no big surprise. On the other hand, usually I felt lame for no particular reason. This time I really had a reason to feel lame.

When a girl uses six derogatory adjectives in her attempt to paint the portrait of the loved one, it means something. One may indicate a merely temporary tiff. Six is big stuff.

P. G. Wodehouse

This war in Iraq makes millions of dollars for big corporations, either weapons manufacturers or those working in the reconstruction, such as Halliburton and its sister companies... It is crystal clear who benefits from igniting the fire of this war and this bloodshed: They are the merchants of war, the bloodsuckers who run the policy of the world from behind the scenes. President Bush and his ilk, the media giants, and the U. N... all are a fatal danger to the world, and the Zionist lobby is their most dangerous member. God willing, we will persist in fighting them...

Osama bin Laden